Transport and Fate of Bacterial Communities in Mississippi Coastal Ecosystems
Map of study area along Mississippi Coast. (A) We will principally focus on the major estuarine zones of Bay St. Louis, Biloxi Bay, and Pascagoula Bay because of their primary role and the land-ocean interface. The three bays span the width of the Mississippi coast and differ in their hydrological and ecological properties. (B) Bat St. Louis is fed by the Jourdan and Wolf Rivers. (C) Biloxi Bay is strongly influences by its urban setting and enclosed shape. (D) Pascagoula Bay receives inputs from the undammed and meandering Pascagoula River, is less influenced by urban inputs, and has an open shape that could promote ocean connectivity.
Principal Investigators: Nathan Wisnoski (MSU)
Award Amount: $615,000
Project Description
Goal:
Investigate the ecological mechanisms that influence the spatial and temporal dynamics of bacterial communities in the Mississippi Sound, with a particular focus on the movement of materials and organisms across the land-ocean interface.
Why it is Important:
Bacteria are incredibly diverse and perform a wide range of ecosystem functions that influence water quality and ecosystem productivity. Understanding the mechanisms that regulate their community composition and potential functions is important for managing healthy coastal waterways to mitigate human impacts.
Objectives:
Characterize nearshore bacterial communities and analyze important drivers of their spatial and temporal variability.
Identify important sources of bacterial inputs to the coastal region and the ecological processes that regulate their subsequent fate in the estuary.
Investigate the quality and quantity of organic matter along the coast and identify key molecules and biogeochemical transformations that regulate bacterial abundance.
Expected Outcomes and Management Impacts:
A list of potential terrestrial sources of coastal bacteria, including putative pathogens.
Hotspot maps of dominant bacteria in Bay St. Louis, Biloxi Bay, and Pascagoula Bay.
Comparisons between free-living bacteria and particle-attached bacteria, which sink to the bottom and can be consumed by oysters and serve as a potential source of contamination.
Identify bacterial taxa that may be associated with specific molecular compounds contributed from point-source inputs, which could serve as indicator taxa for contaminants.
OUTREACH:
We will develop interactive K-12 modules in coordination with local schools to inform students about the importance of microorganisms. It is difficult to appreciate microbes in the environment until you get a chance to see them, so we will facilitate a series of short workshops where students culture bacteria from environmental samples spanned by this project (e.g., seawater, freshwater, soils) using agar plates to visibly demonstrate the bacterial diversity found within and among habitat types in their home state of Mississippi. This activity will be coupled with broad ecological instruction on the type of ecosystem services supported by microorganisms in different environments.